1. Field of the Invention
The inventions described herein relate to a coated fabric that contains recycled coated fabric material and/or other post consumer recycled materials and a method for manufacturing such coated fabric.
2. Description of the Related Art
Coated fabrics are used extensively in products such as, for example, wallcoverings, awnings, upholstery, tarpaulins, billboards and signs, digitally or screen printed media, swimming pool liners, roofing membranes and ceiling coverings. Prior coated fabrics have two layers: a backing or fabric layer and a top or coating layer.
The backing layer is sometimes referred to as a fabric but the backing can be any material onto which another material can be applied. In other words, the term “fabric” in the phrase “coated fabrics” is used in a generic way to refer to the backing layer. Examples of backing layers are woven fabrics, non-woven papers, scrims, osnaburgs, drills and wet-laid or spun non-woven material.
The top layer is sometimes referred to as a coating but the top layer can be any material that can be applied onto the backing layer. In other words, the term “coated” in the phrase “coated fabrics” is used in a generic way to refer to the top layer. An example of a top layer material widely used with coated fabrics is poly-vinyl chloride (“PVC” or “vinyl”). In addition, other polymeric coatings can be used as a top layer material. In some cases, the top layer material must also be able to have a consistent color and be able to undergo conversion or finishing operations such as, for example, printing, embossing, coating, spanishing or laminating. Of course, both the bottom backing layer and the top coating layer materials must be flexible enough to allow the coated fabric to be used for its intended purpose, such as, for example, a wallcovering, an awning, upholstery, a tarpaulin, a billboard or sign, a digitally or screen printed media, a swimming pool liner, a roofing membrane or a ceiling covering.
The application of the top layer to the bottom layer is sometimes referred to as a coating operation but the application can be done in a number of manners that may not literally be a coating operation. In other words, the phrase “coating operation” is used in a generic way to refer to applying a top layer to the backing. Examples of application operations are laminating, calendering, extrusion coating, plastisol coating, reverse roll coating, knife-over-roll coating or direct gravure coating.
A problem with coated fabrics is the coating materials are not biodegradable and take up space in land-fills. As a result, coated fabric manufacturers and users are concerned with disposal of used or post-consumer, scrap, process scrap, misprinted, dead, overstocked or otherwise unusable coated fabrics, and they are especially concerned with the disposal costs and impact to the environment. Those concerns have led to various attempts to recycle such materials into a reusable form.
Most prior recycling efforts concentrated on separating out the coating material from the fabric backings. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,483,488 discloses a process of freezing and impacting a coated fabric material to separate the PVC coating from the fabric backing. Another example is Japanese Patent No. JP5-247863, which discloses a method of using air to pulverize paper impregnated with resin to separate the paper and the resin. Those recycling methods, however, can be costly and still create waste, i.e., the non-recycled backing materials.
Another prior recycling method was to apply a new coating over old sheets of vinyl or sheets of coated fabrics. The resulting coated fabrics, however, were very heavy and hard to handle and use. As a result, the market did not readily accept such products.
Unlike the prior recycling methods, the inventions described herein use recycled coated fabrics that include both the coating material and the fabric backing of the recycled coated fabrics, and, thus, do not create any waste material.